Saturday, May 14th will mark the 11th annual Letter Carrier Food Drive throughout Pierce County and much of the United States. Since its inception in 1994, this food drive is the largest annual drive to help local food banks provide an average of 734,000 meals to more than 67,000 children and adults in the Pierce County community.

2,479,023 pounds has been donated since the drive began in 1994 including 305,076 pounds in 2004. Drive organizers have set a goal of 400,000 pounds for 2005. “The drive hit its highest mark in 2002,” said Dennis Shimomura, Customer Relations Coordinator for the Tacoma Post Office. “The letter carriers and postal workers have really put effort into bringing the drive back to that 2002 level and I think we can do it.”

Letter carriers have already delivered post cards publicizing the drive to every customer in Pierce County. On Thursday, May 12th the letter carriers will be delivering food drive bags along with the regular mail. Postal customers are asked to fill the bags with non-perishable food items such as canned fruits and vegetables, packages of pastas, rice or beans, and other items not in glass containers. Letter carriers are requesting customers to have the bags out by 8:30 a.m. next to the mail receptacle where the letter carrier delivers mail. The letter carrier will see that the food gets to a local food bank or the Emergency Food Network.

“This is a big deal to all of us who work in the food bank system,” said Beth Johnson of the Emergency Food Network. ” This is how we keep enough food in the food banks between mid spring and early summer when we begin getting produce from Mother Earth Farm,” she added.

For further information please call the Emergency Food Network at (253) 584-1040.